Finals Game 4 - in Cleveland

Celtic fans are thinking "Yeah, that's the Cleveland offense we saw in our series..."  49 points in the 1st quarter.  Wow.

You are not going to beat a team that is shooting 53.3% from 3 like Cleveland did last night.  They shot 52.9% overall.  Is this the first time a team's 3pt fg% was higher than their overall fg%?  That's the new NBA.

GSW scored more points in the paint, 40-36, than Cleveland and Cleveland won in a blow out.  Another statement about the new NBA.  Points in the paint are scored now with quality outside shooting opening up the floor for cutters, not by pounding it in from point blank.  

I've given up trying to pigeonhole players into my idea of what a winning team's roster needs to look like.  The last 3 Championships series have convinced me.  When was the last time a Championship team had a dominating, skilled big as their leader?  I don't know which is the chicken and which is the egg.  Are there no dominating, skilled bigs because the game has passed them by or has the game evolved to accommodate the fact that there aren't any dominating, skilled bigs?  Well, there is KAT and Davis and Cousins.  All three qualify as dominating, skilled bigs.  And what a magnificent playoff run they had this year, huh?  Oh, wait a second...Gobert has his place, although he is not anywhere near as skilled as those first 3.  His team, the top defense in the league, made the playoffs and got swept by the #1 offense.

We've seen this ourselves over the year.  When we are hitting our 3s we are unstoppable because everything else opens up for us.  It's about shooting.  Perimeter defenders are important but Kyrie Irving and Westbrook and the other elite scorers cannot be stopped, not for a 7 game series and that's what it's all about.  We can crow about being the only team to beat GSW in Oakland two years in a row, but does anybody really believe we could beat them in a 7 game series?  Their offense is too uncontainable.  

I live in the SF bay area.  I watch a fair number of GSW games over the course of a season, although nowhere near as many as Celtic games.  They haven't averaged 69 wins/season over the last 3 seasons by just being lucky or just because they have Durant.  Their 67-15 record this year is actually an off year.  I would kill for 67 wins and that's below their average.  We need scorers.  We need rebounders.  In my opinion, in that order.  You can gang rebound but you need players in this league who can create their own shot and that's what GSW has in spades.  Cleveland has LeBron and Irving and that's it.  Most of Love's offense comes from catch-and-shoot from 3.  

I have confidence Jaylen can grow into being this type of player.  He already has some of it, he just needs to burn in some more moves.  It might take 2 more years, though, before he blossoms.  It took Kawhi Leonard 3-4 years before he blossomed.  We have IT.  We need at least one more, preferably a big.  A guard, maybe two, and another player playing a completely different position like KD and Curry and Thompson.  IT and Fultz and Jaylen is nice but we really need that elite big.  Horford's nice, but he isn't unstoppable.  He's the guy who helps make other players better.  You need those, you need a Rondo, but you also need the Paul Pierces and Ray Allens and KGs.  You need the unstoppables and you need more than one so he can't be shut down and, if you want a shot at the title, you really need more than two.


bob


.

bob



.

Hi,
Very nice. Just for game #4. For games 1 and 2 it'd be the other way around.
BTW, Bobh, you aware what happened to Kathy....

AK